The 2021 Hawaiian Moon Calendar was inspired and created by Aunty Bobbee Mills. Edited, updated and enhanced by Kalei Nuʻuhiwa. This provides users with all the lunar information about the upcoming year including moon phases and recommendations for planting and fishing. 2021 features the elusive 13th month for the first time ever!

The 13th Month

Kapawa is one of the fourteen Malama Pili a ʻUkali that is inserted into the Hawaiian lunar calendar at appropriate intervals. A Malama Pili a ʻUkali is an extra lunar month that the kahuna kilokilo inserted into the calendar to ensure that the Hawaiian year proceeded forward to coincide properly with other annual celestial events and markers noted to keep Hawaiian time.The insertion of a Malama Pili a ʻUkali also guaranteed that the calendar could continue to cycle forward without any discrepancies of missing key seasonal expectations.

This year the 13th lunar month is called Kapawa. Kapawa can be interpreted as predawn and is mentioned in the Kumulipo. Kapawa is one of the names for the star Regulus when it rises about an hour before the sun. Other Hawaiian scholars note that most of the Malama Pili a ʻUkali are planets and that Kapawa could also be another name for the planet Venus. The word pawa means the darkness just before dawn, predawn, smooth, fat, or sleek. Sayings like, Ua moku ka pawa or Moku pawa, are used to
describe that dawn has broken or that the night has been severed by the light of the sun.

This year the Prince Kūhiō Hawaiian Civic Club honors Aunty Barbara “Bobbee” Mills-Diaz by dedicating this Malama Pili a ʻUkali named Kapawa to her and the work she did to ensure that the Hawaiian lunar calendar practices remained alive. Like severing the veil of forgotten traditions, her work has blossomed into a whole reawakening of the Kaulana Mahina movement. Mahalo Aunty Bobbee.

Aloha,
Kalei Nuʻuhiwa
August 27, 2020